EDIT: I'll leave this here for the next poor soul. But it looks very much like this lavalier mic came with a defective extension cord. I cannot test it in my project at this moment, but prelim. troubleshooting suggest this. Notable that when I paid more attention, I realized that the extension cord did not fit into the phone as tightly as the mic itself. When I can test more fully, I'll report back on my theory. But I'm pretty confident at this point.
Now to figure out whether the the fully functional lavalier itself does a good enough job in my context.
Can anybody give some advice on getting a good mic? Suitable for a talking head video, where the subject turns to play the piano intermittently?
The phone microphone is way too echo-y, and a new lavalier is insanely soft (like 1/3 or 1/4 the volume that the phone gets from six feet away (PowerDeWise, omnidirectional with Samsung/Android phone). But it is not the piano that is making the lavalier soft; it is soft from the get-go with speech only. Amplifying works pretty well but, of course, there's a low level background noise magnified to audibility. Notably, the lavalier was good enough recording a zoom meeting on a Windows desktop, but it practically disappears with the phone.
Of course, I want to get this yesterday. While I don't need Hollywood-level gear, money is not the very first consideration. The problem is learning enough quickly to make a decent decision quickly.
Any tips or direction to information will be gratefully accepted. Thanks for listening,
Jeanne